


Because Reasons

by prouvairing



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Aromantic Awareness Week, Asexual Courfeyrac, Grey-romantic Enjolras, Multi, Pansexual Combeferre, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2607122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouvairing/pseuds/prouvairing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t <i>like</i> anyone,” he said, face as straight as possible. The slightest nervous smile, giggle or blush would mean he was lying. Though, of course, even his stonier expression wasn’t usually enough.<br/>“You’re lying.” Of course. “There’s no way you don’t like <i>anyone</i>."</p>
<p>Or: a completely self-indulgent grey-romantic!Enjolras fic posted for AroAW</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because Reasons

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie to you: this is 100% self-indulgent. And for that reason it has been languishing in my folders for almost a year.  
> The triumvirate do not explicitly identify themselves as a queerplatonic triad, mainly because they don't know the terminology yet. However in my mind it's what they'll end up labeling their relationship later on in this timeline.  
> I apologise in advance if, in my attempts at understanding the French education system, I have made terrible mistakes.
> 
> That said, happy Aro Awareness Week!

It’s funny the things that suddenly appear clear as day in hindsight. The things he didn’t think about, the things that at closer inspection were kind of fucked up, but he let slide at the time.

Enjolras can remember once, on a school trip, a girl from the year above him turned in her seat and raised an eyebrow.

“Say, Chris, who do you like?”

This was way before he decided that he was opposed to organized religion and that having people call him Christian really wouldn’t do. Enjolras had shuffled in his seat, because he’d have liked to play naïve and say he liked all his friends, as if he hadn’t heard that silent ‘ _I mean like-like_ ’ in the girl’s question. But he’d been asked this way too many times not to know.

“I don’t _like_ anyone,” he said, face as straight as possible. The slightest nervous smile, giggle or blush would mean he was lying. Though, of course, even his stonier expression wasn’t usually enough.

“You’re lying.” Of course. “There’s no way you don’t like _anyone_. It’s okay if you’re embarrassed, I won’t tell.”

“No, I promise, I really don’t like anyone. I swear.” _Drop it, drop it, drop it_.

Of course they never did. The girl was opening her mouth again, when a voice across the bus aisle said, “Leave him alone, Amèlie, he just doesn’t.”

It was a thin boy with huge black rimmed glasses, dark brown skin and a dusty blue sweater vest (and Enjolras thought he was the only one to wear sweater vests!).

The boy leaned over the aisle to nudge Amèlie and she swatted his hand away.

“Saint Nic, protector of the newbies,” was all of her answer.

The boy smiled, a dimple peeking on his cheek, and Amèlie turned to talk to the girl next to her.

Enjolras was just breathing a sigh of relief when he felt someone drop on the seat beside his, and looked up to meet the boy’s kind dark eyes.

“Don’t mind Amèlie, she just has a thing for trying to set up everyone around her,” he said, and elicited a smile from Enjolras.

“Thanks for that,” he managed, and the boy’s smile widened and he held out his hand.

“No problem. I’m Nicolas, by the way, 5e B.”

That was how it started.

“Christian, 6e B,” he replied, shaking Nicolas’s hand.

“Oh, see, we could’ve been classmates! My moms had me skip a year.”

That was when things started to get better.

*

By his last year of collège he tells Nicolas he’d much rather be called Enjolras.

Nicolas raises his head from the books – the first year of lycèe is hard on him, which is saying something – and taps his lower lip with a pencil. He seems to think on it.

“Well, then it’s only fair you call me Combeferre.”

That’s also the year Combeferre makes friends with Thèo and brings him to the library to meet Enjolras. Tall, tanned, curly-haired and quick-witted Thèo who, when he realizes their little habit, enthusiastically insists on being called Courfeyrac.

*

It’s in the library that Courfeyrac first tries to set him up, with a warm concerned smile, because he thinks that Enjolras works too hard and does not open up enough.

He spends half an hour coming up with names of people of various genders, trying to piece together what Enjolras likes, before the boy in question stands abruptly and makes an excuse about having to feed the cat.

Combeferre sighs heavily.

*

Courfeyrac slumps in the seat in front of Enjolras, a wrinkle between his eyebrows and two steaming mugs of coffee in his hands. He slides one across the table towards him, like a peace offering, and Enjolras grabs it with a small smile.

“So I talked with ‘Ferre,” Courfeyrac starts, hands curled around the paper cup. “And I owe you an apology.”

Enjolras shrugs and sips his coffee: just enough milk, one sugar, exactly how he likes it. He says, “I should have told you it wasn’t okay. I just… don’t do the dating thing.”

It isn’t that he hasn’t time, or that he’s focusing on his studies. If that were the case, he’d have no time for his friends either, and he loves and values his friends most of all. He could make time. He just hasn’t ever met someone that he wants to make time for.

Courfeyrac shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have assumed.  It was shitty of me, and I’m sorry.” He reaches out, earnest dark eyes shining, and grabs both of Enjolras’s hands in his. “From now on, I shall defend your right no to date to the death.”

Enjolras blinks at him twice, wide-eyed, then bursts out a laugh that is half-snort, half-giggle. Courfeyrac’s answering smile is blinding.

*

When he’s in première and Courfeyrac and Combeferre in terminale and dreading their bac, Courfeyrac finds out about the asexual and aromantic spectrums. He walks into Enjolras’s class in overjoyed-pinball levels of excitement and once again grabs both of his hands.

“You’re coming to mine today after school,” he declares, voice booming. Enjolras’s classmates smirk like they know anything about their relationship, which they both promptly ignore. “I think I found the answers to all our problems.”

It isn’t really that simple, because diving into labels is confusing as hell, and talking over their emotions leaves them both with cheeks aflame and a swirl of terrible and wonderful feelings in their chests.

All three of them are curled up on the bed, Enjolras’s head on Courfeyrac’s belly, where the other lies half-sprawled over Combeferre’s legs.

In a surprising display of everything their parents’ generation hates about them, each of them has either a laptop, a tablet or a smart phone in hand.

“So hear this,” Courfeyrac pipes up. “Post says that if a pansexual person touches an asexual person they will ascend to a higher plane of existence.”

Combeferre very deliberately reaches out to boop Courfeyrac’s nose. They wait in silence for a moment, Enjolras’s blue eyes dart from one to the other, upside-down, before he solemnly says, “Well, _that’s_ a myth busted.”

Courfeyrac rubs his nose and smiles down at him, then at Combeferre. “I don’t know, I think we need more trials.”

Combeferre’s eyes are fixed on his phone but his smile is sheepish. “I could always touch Enjolras.”

“We’re postponing that particular experiment to when he’s figured out if he is,” says Courfeyrac sagely.

Enjolras only hums in approval when Courfeyrac scratches the base of his skull.

He’s turning the words _grey-homoromantic_ in his head and he likes the idea of _trying them on_ , like they’re a warm, comfortable sweater. Just another way of saying _there’s nothing wrong with you_ and _you’re fine just the way you are_.

Courf’s hands in his hair and Combeferre’s leg nudging him also say, _and we will love you just for that._

**Author's Note:**

> This has been edited very quickly so bear with me.  
> If you're wondering about the title, it was born more or less while I was talking about it with my queerplatonic partner.  
> Something along the lines of "I want to write this because reasons" and "Then go ahead and do it, babe."  
> I could also make the case about how complicated picking a label and explaining your feelings can be. So you can take whichever explanation you prefer.
> 
> You're more than welcome to come say hello on [tumblr](http://seagreeneyes.tumblr.com).


End file.
